Strip
poker is a variant of the card game of poker, in which
the rules require players to remove articles of clothing
in response to various events. The first Strip Poker
computer game was written by the German Gamedesigner
Dieter Eckhardt in the late 1970's using the computers
of an astronomical observatory near Düsseldorf.

Rules

The
game can be played based on any variety of poker,
with the same number of players, dealing and betting
rules, etc. It usually starts with all players wearing
equal number of articles of clothing. There are a
number of ways in which the rules can then be developed
into strip poker. For example, at the end of each
hand:

The
player with the worst hand must remove a piece of
their clothing; or
The player who loses the most money in that round
must remove one; or
The player with the best hand may remove it from them;
or
The player with the best hand may choose which player
must lose an article; or
All players except the winner of the hand lose an
article. Note that this makes for an extremely brief
game, unless fully-nude players are required to perform
some action when they lose a hand, in which case it
may even continue after all players are nude.
Alternatively, whenever a player runs out of chips,
they must trade a piece of clothing for a new (usually
fixed) number of chips.
If players are then allowed to "buy back"
clothing when they have won more chips, this can result
in a zero-sum game, where there is no long-term net
loss of clothing. (With two people, this will have
the consequence that only one of them is missing clothing.)
(Note that "buying back" may be disallowed,
so that the aggregate nudity is always increasing.)
Instead of having a fixed amount of "trade-in"
value for all articles of clothing, some rules allow
for a variable trade-in value system with articles
of clothing that covers a contestant's vital erogenous
zones having the highest value. (Bras and panties
having a higher values than sandals or high heels.)
As a further variant, players who have lost all of
their clothing, achieving total nudity, must perform
sex acts.

Popularity

There
are no known professional associations or official
rules. The U.S. TV show Strip Poker is in fact a general
knowledge quiz, albeit one where contestants take
(some of) their clothes off; though it involves cards
in poker hands, the resemblance to the actual game
is distant.

Strip
poker productions typically involve a group of all
female players. The most famous strip poker productions
were probably National Lampoon's Strip Poker and Strip
Poker Invitational. Both productions featured a group
of female players made up of Playboy or World Wrestling
Entertainment (WWE) models together with pin-up models
competing in unscripted no limit Texas Hold 'em poker
competition. The productions for National Lampoon
were filmed in their entirety at the Hedonism II resort
in Negril, Jamaica, whereas Strip Poker Invitational
productions were filmed in Las Vegas and both productions
aired on Pay-Per-View in 2005. The winner of the first
episode of National Lampoon's Strip Poker was veteran
Playboy model Taylor Kennedy, who stripped five other
models completely naked in the process. National Lampoon's
Strip Poker was the first title in National Lampoon's
history to feature full frontal female nudity.

The
prefix "strip" can be added on to a game
title with a subsequent nudity-inducing adaptation
of the rules (e.g., strip Candyland and strip chess).

While
a popular subject for pornographic fantasy and video
games, genuine research into strip poker as a form
of sexuality is lacking. The element of risk and of
(mock) coercion fits in with a general sexual approach
of domination and submission and/or humiliation.

Strip
poker and other sexual games can occur:

as
part of a mature sexual relationship, where the objective
is to provide variety alongside intercourse (possibly
introducing more adventurous/deviant forms of intercourse)
as a ritual of courtship (in some circumstances it
may be more acceptable for partners to enter intimate
situations as part of a game) as recreation amongst
adults with no intention to move towards sexual intercourse
as part of a pornographic display (whether as part
of prostitution or not) which combines sexual titillation
with the normal interest of seeing a game played as
a party game for youth as the basis of various television
game shows, mostly in Europe, such as Tutti Frutti/Colpo
Grosso (Germany/Italy - 1990), Räsypokka (subTV
- Finland - 2002), Strip! (RTL II - Germany - 1999),
Strip Poker (syndicated - United States - 1997).